Improvement in flood-gates



J. w. EDGERTON,

improvement in Flood-Gates.

Patented June 20,1871.

\wm m UNITED STATES PATENT OFEIcE.

JOSEPH W. EDGERTON, OF THORNTOWN, INDIANA, ASSIGNOR TO HIMSELF AND DAVID J. MOFFITT, OF SAME PLACE.

IMPROVEMENT lN FLOOD-GATES.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 116,170, dated June 20, 1871.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, JOSEPH W. EDGERTON, of Thorntown, in the county ofBoone and State of Indiana, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Flood-Gate and Fence for Low Grounds; and I do declare that the following is a true and accurate description thereof, reference being had to the accompanying drawing and to the letters of reference marked thereon and being a part of this specification, in which my fence is shown in perspective, with one section erect and another down to permit drift-wood to pass over it.

This invention has for its object the construction of a fence for low grounds and watercourses in such a manner that when the locality is flooded the fence will be thrown down flat by the pressure of the drift-wood against it, which will then pass over it without injury and it consists in combining with a sectional fence, attached to sills which are pivoted on posts driven into certain ground, certain springs attached to an apron, and so construct ed and arranged in reference to square portion of said sills that the fence is held or locked in either a vertical or horizontal position, requiring a certain degree of force to remove it from either position.

In the drawing, A represents short posts, firmly driven into the low ground or in the bed of a water-course across which it is designed to carry the fence. On the up-stream sides of these posts are journaled the square beams B forming the sills of the fen ce-section. Into one face of the sill is mortised a series of pickets, a, which thus form the fence-sections. O is a wooden apron, secured to the ground on the upstream side of the fence, sloping up to a plane above the sills B. D are leaf-springs recessed into and secured at one end to the face of the apron, and with their other ends overlapping the square portions of the sills between the end pickets, exerting a downward pressure thereon. To prevent wear of the sills they may be faced, where the springs bear,

with sheet metal. The sections being erect, in case of a flood, when suflicient pressure is exerted upon them by the collecting drift-wood, they will be thrown down and there locked in a horizontal position, and the drift-wood permitted to float away, which cannot catch on the sills, they being on a lower plane than the edge of the apron; after the flood has subsided it is an easy matter to set up the sections again. In the construction of gates where the springs operate with a constant upward pressure a certain stiffness is required in the spring, in order to have said gates retain a vertical position to serve as fences against the intrusion of cattle when the Water is low; but such gates, by this construction, are apt to be entangled with trees and floating brush, the increasing accumulation of which destroys them, while in my invention the gates, when moved from the vertical position, are forced down at once to the horizontal position, and, having no inclination to rise, are not liable to be clogged or destroyed.

I am aware that flood-gates and fences have been made where the springs were arranged with a constant upward pressure, as before described, which would allow such gates, when the force of the flood or of drift-wood was removed, to rise again to a vertical position, and I do not pretend to have invented any gate thus constructed and operated.

I claim as my invention and desire to secure by Letters Patent- The combination of the section-fence, composed of the pickets a and the sills B, the latter being journaled in the posts A, with the springs D secured upon the apron G, when the several parts are constructed and arranged substantially as described and shown, and operated so that the gates are locked in either a vertical or horizontal position.

JOSEPH W. EDGERTON.

Witnesses: V

JOSEPH (J. SUIT, ROBERT T. GROVE. 

